It’s not okay to take away useful tools and options from non-criminals on the basis that criminals use them. We do not ban cars on the basis that they are a tool for drive-by shootings.

Again, I would say that should depend on statistics. If a tool is misused for criminal activities in the vast majority of cases, I think you have to make some compromise on personal freedom in favor of security and law enforcement.

Not really. Marginalizing and oppressing non-criminals is not justified by a hunt for criminals. If your approach to hunting criminals harms non-criminals, you’re doing it wrong.

Isn’t that the case for many preventive security measures? I mean the baggage checks at the airport are time consuming and restrict everyone on bringing liquids, large batteries, forks, knives etc. into the plane. And I’m pretty sure, the ratio of ‘terrorists carrying bombs’ to ‘just normal people bringing their water bottle’ is significantly worse than the crime : non-crime factor in case of FedEx cash.

Same with routine controls at a border or on the highway. It’s annoying for many people due to delays just to catch some few smugglers, overloaded trucks etc.

A security camera in a bank will film thousands of regular customers before it ever (if at all) gets to see a robbery.

I fully understand that people criticise all of these measures but to be honest I have some doubts that getting rid of everything would be a smart idea.

Law enforcement by definition deals with suspects not convicted criminals. So even if we moved to a purely reactive law enforcement, your measures will still affect the innocent suspects.

The case at hand is even more perverse, as the civil forfeiture practice actually hinders enforcement of law. They do the money grab for the money. When you seize cash, you send a clear signal to criminals that they are being investigated.

That point I see as well. But wouldn’t the alternative be even worse for you from a privacy perspective? They keep the practice of scanning packages but rather than seizing the money, they send investigators after the intended recipient. That wouldn’t only dramatically increase the costs of law enforcement but also lead to innocents being supervised.

When you seize money from a tax evader a year before they evade tax by filing their fraudulent tax return, you actually sabotage the opportunity to catch them (it’s crime-prevention prevention). You can only catch them by recording the cash and letting it go, then auditing their tax using that information a year or two later.

Not all money transfers are taxable income. So if police knows that you received 10,000 in a box last year but didn’t declare it that doesn’t automatically mean you invaded taxes. The criminal could say, that it wasn’t their money and they gave it to someone else, declare it as a gift or a returned loan from a friend. They could also just say that the package was stolen from the porch and never arrived.

Furthermore, the recipient on the label may not be real person. Maybe the money is shipped to “Mr & Mrs Activist Punk” but the real criminal is waiting in front of the house to intercept the delivery.

All in all, I still think seizing big amounts of cash from deliveries is somewhat acceptable as long as…

• Police can provide statistics to underline that the practice is used by criminals in a significant manner.
• All cases are well-documented and no money is going to the policemen themselves.
• There is a reasonable limit (e.g. don’t seize 100 USD that aunt Marty sends to her nephew for his birthday).
• The sender and recipient are informed about the money being seized and have a chance to reclaim it if they can proof the legitimate background.

Please leave some internet for the rest of us!

Regarding all the companies you’ve critized: isn’t that unfortunately the case for many if not most bigger companies?

I don’t live in the US, so I can’t guarantee that the following statements are all correct and up to date. However, after a quick research many of the issues apply to FedEx as well.

FedEx donates far more money to republicans than democats and did so historically (source).

FedEx critized Trump in 2018 on some specific ideas but couldn’t find anything like that in the recent past.

If you sign up with FedEx, they may share all your data with their partners. According to Reddit even including your including your credentials (wtf). (source).

FedEx may scan the ID of the recipient (source).

FedEx requires an ID when sending in store (source).

Cash shipments are officially forbidden as per the FedEx ToS, no matter if the package is insured or not. If money is shipped anyhow it is not covered by the insurance. (source .

Didn’t find infos on memberships but FedEx promotes digital payments and the ‘Better than cash’ alliance source).

According to this petition FedEx and Pfitzer are among the biggest funders of ALEC and Project 2025.

TBC. Just wanted to list a few of the quick findings.

Regarding acceptance of cryptocurrency or other forms of payments, I think that’s similar for sending cash in a box. Again, I don’t live in the US, but in Germany you’d be having a hard time to find a jeweler or other professional entity that accepts such a form of payment. First, they won’t want to have discussions if packages are lost or valuables are partly stolen from the package. Second, they don’t want to be associated with dubious businesses. Furthermore, there’s a legal limit for cash payments of 10,000€ to avoid money laundering.

I think to get back to the original topic, it’d be interesting to see some statistics on what percentage of the cases where police seized cash from packages were legal (although against FedEx ToS) and how many were related to criminal activities. If it’s like 90% crime and the 10% legitimate senders/recipients have a chance to reclaim their money after providing further details, then I’m fine with that. If the numbers are the other way around, I’m siding with you. ;)

Thanks a lot for the detailed answer! It helped me to better understand your perspective.

Regarding (1) I can somehow understand why it’s often a percentage. The more valuable the goods that you transport, the higher the associated risks. Insurance costs are higher and also the employees are more endagered of being robbed.

Regarding (3) I would say that’s only in very specific scenarios like international money transfer from/to sanctioned countries or if the recipient is on some kind of watch list. PayPal, Credit Card, Crypto Currency etc. should typically all process within seconds. International bank transfer also shouldn’t take more than a few days. And if we’re talking about delays caused by sanctions, then physical deliveries are affected as well.

What is still hard to understand for me is that people would send ANYTHING valuable in a non insured package, especially money. As you mentioned yourself in point (5), there’s a huge risk of it being lost or stolen. Also independent of (potentially unlawful) police officers. Therefore, my intuitive feeling was, whoever is willing to take that risk, has a lot of money to transfer and is willing to lose some in favor to stay invisible.

If you use a courier service that’s specialized on valuables which offers also insurance etc. that’s a completely different story to me. But insured FedEx packages full of cash are still suspicious to me and I find it fair to question the legitimacy.

I don’t know about the US but in Germany the context of things is definitely considered to judge if something is common or suspicious.

It’s perfectly legal to own a clown mask and to wear it during carnival would be common. If you wear one outside carnival and walk towards the door of a bank, that’s pretty suspicious.

It’s perfectly legal to stand around in public. If you do it alone, at night in an area that’s known to have many drug dealers and you suddenly start to run away if the police strolls along, then that’s suspicious again.

And if the police considers you to be suspicious, they will ask what you’re doing and to explain your behavior. They won’t straight away throw you into jail obviously but they have the right to do a routine check.

For me, the cash in a regular package is really similar. If they seize your cash and you can proof that it was a weird way to pay for a car or that your aunt forgot her pile of cash when she visited you and you send it after her, then I’m quite sure, they’ll have to hand it back. If you object to explain who sent you $10.000 and why, then I agree to find that pretty suspicious.

Assuming criminals do use FedEx etc. to transfer illegally earned money anonymously from one place to another, what would be the alternative to intervene? Or would you just let it happen?

Okay, valid point. But is the police seizing such packages? If we assume the police is stealing it out of greed, that wouldn’t be too profitable for them to steal 5 USD in Zimbabwe dollars.

I thought they’re confiscating cash with a higher value, like bundlSe of USD/CAD/EUR/AUD etc. In the article they wrote 6 million USD and on the picture I see only US notes as well. And if that’s the case, I somewhat agree that that’s a bit suspicious.

Still, they shouldn’t just take and keep it, but if they confiscate it and then contact the recipient to explain the background of the transaction, I’d be fine with that.

If you carry large amounts of cash on a flight you also have provide reason and papertrail for that.

Are there actually legitimate use cases to send larger amounts of cash in a regular package? Typically, such packages are not insured or only up to a rather small amount. So, if you want to transfer a large amount in cash, most people would probably use a dedicated cash transfer service. Or even more likely, do it electronically.

Or do they also seize small amounts of money from birthday presents and christmas cards?

Yeah, makes sense in the end even though it’s hard to grasp for me. Especially if the object on top is freely rolling and therefore feels somewhat decoupled to me. I imagined the train below the bike to behave like a tablecloth pulled from underneath a glass and where the glass keeps in the same place thanks to inertia.

But coming back to my initial statement, if the train’s movement doesn’t impact the point of landing, does it increase the difficulty for the stunts? Or is it more for the nice effect in the video?

Oh, is it? I thought that’s just applicable in an enclosed space. So if I jump on top of a moving something, I should still land in the same spot?

I didn’t say they’re easy. I’m not a biker but from my outsider perspective - timing aside - this didn’t look harder than doing the same performance on the ground. If I’m wrong, please enlighten me, I’m willing to learn.

So it’s for sure a great achievement to master the timings etc. but aren’t the jumps rather easier than harder compared to a non-moving track? I mean, you have to jump ‘only’ upwards and don’t have to use any of your momentum on distance. Or do I oversee something?

I think normally they are made with mesh not transparent hard plastics. If you can speak of normal at all when it comes to cat backpacks. :D

Preparing that yourself or are there places where you can buy pickled watermelon?

Fruity beer is also common in Belgium. It’s not mixed with juice but is already flavored in the bottle as you buy it. And yes, it’s delicious. Kriek for instance is a pretty famous cherry flavored beer.

Also non-alcaholic beer mixed with juice is a pretty decent drink after sports. The slight bitterness and the bubbles makes it really refreshing on hot days.

I have ‘night mode’ and ‘extra dark’ in my quick settings right below the slider. If I can get rid of one or both with an updated slider that’d be a great improvement. Never understood why smartphones are so super bright by default.

But it would take a long time to open each packet and spray it on the fire.

1. Lay the Capri Suns in the ground next to the fire
2. Get another semi truck
3. Drive over the packets to squish out the liquid onto the fire
4. If the additional semi truck catches fire as well, repeat from step 1

And do people also buy these non-alcaholic versions then or are they barely available in stores? If they really offer the alternative and at least some people switch to them, I’d still consider it a win.

Does anyone know how they define junk food in that guideline? Is it based on calories / fat / sugar? Or do they have a specific list of products that are now forbidden in ads? Or a list of companies? Does the ban include product placements (like a kids movie where a family goes to McD? What about ‘normal’ content about fast food (like SpongeBob making krabby burgers)?

I really appreciate the law but I think it can be quite challenging to draw the line between legal and illegal.

I vividly remember pushing my parents to go McDonald’s after I saw an advertisement with the newest Happy Meal toys. I wanted the toy in the first place, the food tasted good as a kid but even then not amazing. I think ads do have a huge influence on which toys and which food kids ask for.

I always and exclusively vote based on people’s hats. Thank god I’m not living in 'murica! :}